The Worst Thing To Be Is An Employee!

Today I was playing around on one of my favorite online destinations, Stockchoker.com. I love to see what investments would be worth today if made during a given date in the past.

I don’t know why, but I looked up Home Depot and what a $5000 investment made in 1981 would have been worth today, 37 years later. The number was a staggering $44,456,000 – that’s right, almost 45 million when you reinvested the dividends.

That got me to thinking about what it means to invest in a company. When you buy shares of a stock of any company, you become a partner. A freakin’ partner! Think about it. How beautiful is it to become a partner without paying lawyer fees, hiring an accountant, filing quarterly taxes, or dealing with employees and customers? All you have to do is buy shares and wait.

I don’t know who, but someone out there had the presence of mind to buy shares in Home Depot back then and hold on to them. Think about this for a moment. 10 years after becoming a partner in Home Depot, which would have been 1991, would have allowed you to potentially retire! That will never happen as an employee.

My daughter is 17. I will continue to preach to her to never, ever be an employee. Being an employee is the worst thing to be. You want to be an owner or a partner! And the first step to doing that, my friends, is becoming invested.

Check out my beginners’ investment guide, The Stock Market is for Everyone, on Amazon and Smashwords. Please share your thoughts in the comments!